


penelope at her loom

by azurish



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mentors, Romance, X-Wing(s), the universe where Luke/Wedge was pretty much a celebrity couple and everyone just knows about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-08 07:37:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5489030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurish/pseuds/azurish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“So I hear you’re the best pilot in the Resistance."</i>
</p><p>The fic where Wedge Antilles mentors the next generation's star rebel pilot, and Poe Dameron finds out what life is like when you might one day be a legend.  Along the way, he learns a little bit about love, meets the stormtrooper who just might change his life, and gets a ringside seat to Skywalker family drama.  (Also, he gets to know the guy he's been fanboying since he was six, but he's <i>totally</i> cool about that.  Totally.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. heroes of the resistance

            “So I hear you’re the best pilot in the Resistance,” a man says as he slides in across the table from Poe in the cafeteria.  At first, Poe is so busy trying to figure out how to deflect a compliment that’s slowly becoming familiar to him that he doesn’t notice _who_ the guy is.  But then he looks up from his plate and makes eye contact with the man with the kind, amused smile and the sharp nose and thin face he recognizes from all the posters and news clippings on his childhood bedroom walls, and he chokes on his half-formed words because he’s looked up to this man since before he can remember and _oh my God –_

            _Cool.  Play it cool, Dameron_.  “Well, I don’t know about that, General Antilles,” he says.  “Seems to me you got that title locked down.”

            The silver-haired general grins.  “Call me Wedge,” he says, and Poe reaches out to shake his hand.  He notices that the inside of Wedge’s thumbs are callused right by the joint, where the yoke in X-Wings tends to rub, just like Poe’s thumbs are – and then Wedge gently tugs his hand back and Poe realizes he might have been holding on to Wedge a little too long.  But OK, that’s fine, they’re cool.  This is fine.  Wedge Antilles just told him to call him by his first name and shook his hand and he is not freaking out internally or _anything_.  “And I don’t know about being the best pilot.  You’ve never seen a Force-trained pilot fly, have you?”  Poe shakes his head.  Wedge looks a little bit fond and a little bit nostalgic as he says, “They’re really something else.”

            Wedge Antilles has been Poe’s hero since he was six years old and his mom first strapped him into her old A-Wing, and he isn’t going to stand by and hear anyone claim Wedge is anything _other_ than the best pilot the galaxy has ever seen.  Even if the person doing so is Wedge himself.  “But there’s no other Resistance pilot with a record anything close to yours, sir – uh, Wedge.  Two Death Stars?”

            Wedge smiles.  “Luke had a bit of a hand in the first one.”

            Poe refrains from pointing out that actually sticking around is a pretty important part of being a good rebel pilot, because the fact that Wedge’s _husband_ had disappeared off to Force knew where is probably a sore point for him.  Instead, he says, “You’re still the only pilot to have helped blow up both.  And the way you took down an AT-AT on Hoth – the time you navigated a megahurricane on Oulanne – and everything you did during the Battle for Coruscant – you’re a legend.”  Then he cuts himself off because the corners of Wedge’s eyes are crinkling with what might be suppressed laughter.

            “I’ve heard you’re not so bad yourself, Dameron.  Even General Organa was talking about how you flew on Sicemon – and it takes a lot to impress a woman married to Han Solo.”

            Poe shrugs.  “I just love flying, is all.”

            “Well, you’re damn good at it.”  Wedge leans in and props his elbow against the metal of the cafeteria table.  There’s a spark of professional interest in his eyes when he asks, “Tell me, do X-Wing yokes still kick the way they used to any time you try a barrel roll?  Used to drive me crazy.”

            “Yeah,” Poe says.  “You’ve got to push down hard whenever you’re about to tuck under – otherwise the stick will push your ship’s nose up too fast.”

            “Hah!  I remember that.  I’m really just a desk jockey these days –” Poe wants to protest that being one of the Resistance’s chief military strategists is _hardly_ being a desk jockey, but he may have tried to defend Wedge’s honor from the man himself a little too strenuously already in this conversation, so he keeps quiet – “but I do try to sneak some time in with the simulators when I’m free.  They never really get that kick back right.  It throws me off – I always come out of barrel rolls too low.”

            Poe can’t help it: he snorts.  “Yeah, I can’t imagine you’re anything other than amazing in a simulator.  Too low barrel rolls or not.”

            Wedge quirks an eyebrow.  “Maybe you’ll get to find out – I’d love to fly against you in a sim someday.”  At that, Poe accidentally stabs his plate instead of his meal with his fork, because flying with _Wedge Antilles_ is definitely something his six year-old self daydreamed about.  If Wedge notices – and Poe suspects he does, because very little seems to escape the older pilot’s sharp gaze – he kindly says nothing about it.


	2. commanding officers

            The night after Poe gets promoted to commander, his friends take him out for drinks.  The morning after, he wakes up with one of the worst hangovers of his life and the unpleasant realization that the feeling he’d thought was giddiness is, in fact, panic.  (Well, panic and nausea, but after the nausea is cured by a friend’s tried and tested hangover remedy, the panic is still there.)

            How the hell is _he_ supposed to be responsible for the lives of a dozen other pilots?  He’s not the person they should have leading a squadron.  Clearly the Resistance has made some horrible mistakes.  For Force’s sake, sometimes he wears the same pair of socks for a week in a row!  He’s pretty sure (although he can’t honestly remember) that he participated in a dramatic reenactment of the climactic scene of one of Face Loran’s holodramas on top of a bar stool the night before!  No one should be putting people’s lives in his hands.

            He tries to panic very quietly on his own, but he soon finds himself pacing in the rec room.  He knows he must look pretty agitated, because his squadmates are shooting him concerned looks.  Soon someone is going to ask him whether he’s all right, and he absolutely, positively cannot tell the pilots he’s supposed to command that he’s terrified of leading them.

            But he’s not sure whom he can talk to, and the words feel like they need to burst out of him.  Until, of course, he realizes: Wedge would listen.  The older man has become something of a mentor to him: after Poe got comfortable with the fact that his childhood hero was talking to him _and_ with the fact that he’s kind of become the sort of hero Wedge was for the Resistance pilots of this generation, he’d realized how useful the advice Wedge could give him is.  Wedge knows what it feels like to have all eyes on you.  He knows what it feels like to be the only one to survive a mission, to be unable to understand how or why a friend had made the sort of piloting mistake that had cost them their life, to lie awake at night wondering why _you_ had survived and be unable to answer.  And – of course – he knows what it’s like to lead a squadron.

            Wedge had arrived on base a few days earlier for a meeting about a mission whose details Poe doesn’t officially know.  He’d had dinner with Poe and some friends and told them stories about the ridiculous dealings of Republic politicos and Resistance leaders – the kind of stories that were _just_ the right side of funny, although shot through beneath the surface with frustration.  In turn, he’d listened to Poe and his mates recount some of the closer scrapes they’d been in since last they’d talked.  Wedge had even been coaxed into sharing some tales from the bad old days of the Alliance to Restore the Republic.  (The one from back on Hoth when Wes Janson had tricked General Solo into rushing into General Organa’s room, disguised as a Twi’lek, ready to rescue her from an entirely fictitious enemy is Poe’s favorite.)

            He arrives at Wedge’s door just as the other man is leaving.  Wedge is wearing a faded brown t-shirt and sweatpants, and Poe stops and blinks at him.  He’s never seen him so out of uniform before.

            Wedge turns away from closing the door and his lips quirk slightly at whatever he sees in Poe’s face.  “I thought I might get some exercise in at your base’s gym,” he explains.  “Hobbie’s been ribbing me lately about developing some paunch.”  He slaps his midsection at that, and Poe notes that Wedge actually looks pretty in shape, especially for an older guy – but _nope_ , brain _not_ going there, they’re kind of friends now and Wedge is the other side of _fifty_ and _married_ and the fact that Poe had the galaxy’s hugest crush on Wedge when he was fourteen should be entirely immaterial now.  “But you look like you wanted something?”

            Poe jams his hands into his pockets.  “If you’re busy, it can wait – it’s not that important.”

            Wedge regards him for a moment and then jerks his chin towards the entrance to the base’s gym at the other end of the hallway.  “Come run with me.  We can talk about whatever’s eating at you then.”

            The gym is almost empty in the middle of the day.  Wedge takes off around the track and Poe springs into motion a few seconds behind him.  He catches up pretty quickly, and the two lap the gym in companionable silence a few times, the only noise the slap of their shoes’ soles against the floor.  Poe hardly has to push himself to keep up with the older man, but the pace Wedge sets is still fairly respectable.  They run side-by-side, matching each other stride for stride – they’re just about the same height (ace pilots tend towards the shorter side – you’ve got to be, to fit comfortably in a cockpit) and their legs are the same length.

            “There’s nothing that beats running like that,” Wedge says, when they’ve stopped to take a break.  He pats the metal of the exercise machine he’s sitting on.  “Machines are all well and good, but – I’m just an old-fashioned boy from Corellia.  Well.  Hardly a boy these days, but you know what I mean.”

            “Kind of clears your head,” agrees Poe.

            “So tell me: what’ve you got to clear your head from?”

            Poe sighs and fidgets with the folds of his regulation pants.  “Did you know they’ve given me a command?”

            “Of course they did.  You’ll make a fine commander, kid.”

            “I’ve never really been in charge of anything before.  Or – I’ve command my own flight within the squadron, but that’s different?”

            “So you’re worried about how you’ll do?”

            “No!”  Poe pauses.  “Or, uh, yes and no.  Not worried for the sake of my own ego, but, you know, worried about keeping everyone else safe and alive.”

            Wedge tilts his head back and looks up at him from where he’s sitting.  “You wouldn’t be a good commander if you _weren’t_ worried about that, Dameron.”  He holds a hand up to forestall Poe’s protests and adds, “You’re hardly the first squadron leader to be worried about the responsibility of it.  That doesn’t make you unfit to lead – Force knows I still worry about _every_ life under my command and that’s far more than a dozen these days.  Have fun with that one when they make you a general someday.”  Poe tries to interject and Wedge waves him into silence again.  “It just means you take your pilots’ lives seriously.  Good.  Tell me this: do you think General Organa knew how dangerous a mission your squadron’s most recent adventure on Amethia Prime was?”

            Poe blinks.  “Of course.”

            “And she sent you anyways.”

            “But she had to!  Otherwise –”

            “Exactly,” Wedge says.  “She had to because the Resistance needed you guys to clean up operations there.  She knows you and likes you, but she still sent you.  That’s how it works.”  Poe frowns, and Wedge notices.  “Listen,” he tries.  “Who do you think my best friend is?”

            “Tycho?” Poe hazards, thinking of how Wedge talks about his longtime friend from Alderaan.

            “Yeah.  Did you know I’ve nearly sent Tycho to his death multiple times?”

            “It’s not like that, though –”

            “It’s exactly like that,” Wedge says firmly.  “One time, just for instance, I sent Tycho on a solo mission to Kessel, on an extraction mission that even he joked was clearly just a clever attempt to get rid of him so I could, quote, ‘steal his gorgeous X-Wing after his death and get rid of my bucket of bolts.’  But the point is: I sent him anyways.  I knew he wanted to go and wouldn’t forgive me if he knew I _hadn’t_ done something that could help get rid of the First Order for once and for all, because we’re both committed to this fight, body and soul.  We all are, here.  That’s what signing up for the Resistance means.  Was I happy as hell when Tycho came back?  Of course!  But that’s what it means to be in command: not just taking responsibility for risking your own life, but realizing that all these brave people here have agreed to risk theirs as well to fight evil, and respecting the magnitude of the sacrifice they’re offering to make and helping them do what they’ve signed up for.  You try to keep them as safe as you can, but you recognize that they _choose_  to be here, and you don’t get to reject that choice for them.”

            For all that he’s sitting on a workout machine in faded sweatpants and a t-shirt, Wedge has never looked like as much of a general to Poe as he does in this moment.  Poe can easily see how this slight, unassuming man from Corellia is not just one of the Resistance’s best pilots but also one of its most respected generals.

            “But what if my decisions are wrong?” he asks.  “You know – if someone dies because I make a stupid plan.”  The words sound embarrassingly honest and young now that he’s vocalized the sentiment that’s been bothering him, especially in comparison to Wedge’s speech.  But – he cares so much. Getting an answer is worth a bit of embarrassment.

            “You won’t,” Wedge says simply.  “You’re already so concerned with doing right by your squadron.  You’ll do your best to endanger them as little as possible – I know you will.”  He grins suddenly, a bright flash of teeth in his weathered face.  “I wouldn’t have recommended you for a command otherwise.”

            “You –?”

            Wedge stands and stretches.  “Of course I did.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to run a couple more laps before it’s time for my meeting this afternoon.  ‘A bit paunchy’ – I’ll show Hobbie ‘a bit paunchy.’”  But he stops a few steps away and turns back to Poe one last time.  “Oh – and come find me when your first soldier died.  Because that will happen, and it _will_ feel impossible to bear, but it’ll be a little easier with a friend.  All the weight doesn’t have to fall on your shoulders.”  And with that he jogs off towards the track.


	3. hope is the thing with s-foils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short lil' Christmas eve chapter to get us into canon proper. =) Crossposted to tumblr, as ever, at http://azurish.tumblr.com/post/135887385820/penelope-at-her-loom-chapter-3-azurish-star.

            Wedge is the officer who gives him his security briefing when he accepts Leia’s mission to find the map to Luke Skywalker.  These days, Poe is used to being the one to _lead_ briefings himself and to the briefing room being filled with his Rapier squadron mates, so the gray space feels hollow and empty with just the two of them standing by the holoprojector.  Poe doesn’t think that it’s a coincidence that Wedge is one of the few other people who’s in on this top secret mission to locate Luke.  But Wedge also gives damn good instructions and advice, so he’s not objecting.

            After Wedge has gone over the backup rendezvous coordinates one last time, he claps Poe on the shoulder and says, “OK, you should be good.  And I have absolute faith in you.  Any last questions?”

            Before Poe can stop himself, he asks the question everyone probably wants to ask Wedge but is too polite to voice: “Do you think we’ll ever find him?”  Then he flushes.  The fact that Wedge seems to have taken him under his metaphorical wing doesn’t mean he gets to ask deeply personal questions.  So he tries to cover it up and make a question that was really about the hopelessness they all feel sometimes about having lost the last of the Jedi into one about his mission.  “I mean – uh – with this map, do you think this really will help?”

            Instead of refusing to answer or getting annoyed at him for dredging up painful emotions, Wedge, to his surprise, smiles.  It’s a worn little smile.  The crook of his lips betrays far more simple heartbreak than Poe had expected, open and honest.  “I can’t tell you whether we will or won’t find him for sure, kid, but I’ve got to believe it.  I hope we will – that Luke’ll come back.”  When he says Luke’s name, his voice is sweet and sad, and Poe thinks he’s almost never heard someone say someone else’ name like that before.  Maybe his own parents talked about each other that way, but that’s about it.  Wedge wears his heart on his sleeve – Poe’s always recognized him as a straightforward, kindred spirit, a flyboy grown older and more venerable but no more complicated or political, and apparently he’s the same way with his emotions.  That’s love in his voice: the kind of once-in-a-lifetime love from which there’s no going back.  Poe feels like he’s intruding, because Wedge might not realize it, but there was no way you could hear him talk about his husband and not know instantly exactly how he felt.

            “I’ll find that map,” Poe declares.  “I’ll bring it back to base before you guys even know I’m gone.”

            “I’m sure you will,” Wedge says.  “Be safe – may the Force be with you.”

            When Poe is speeding through hyperspace a few hours later in his X-Wing, he wonders whether he’ll ever feel that way about anyone.  He’s not sure he even wants to.

            A few hours after that, a Stormtrooper named FN-2187 rescues him and, between all the adrenaline and pain and exhilaration, Poe feels himself fall just a little bit in love.


	4. vigils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cross-posted to tumblr: http://azurish.tumblr.com/post/136080274895/penelope-at-her-loom-chapter-1-azurish-star. =)

            Wedge comes to see him while he’s visiting Finn in the sickbay.  (It’s not as though he’s just sitting around by Finn’s bedside and waiting for him to wake up or anything, but – he knows Finn is special, and he remembers that spark of _something_ between them and the way Finn looked in his jacket, and he’s not stupid enough to let a good thing like this get away.)  The doctors have told him they expect Finn will wake up in a day or two.  But it’s been five days since Starkiller already and Poe doesn’t want to think about what comas of that length can do to your brain.  Better to focus on the fact that Finn is alive at all.  So instead, he busies himself with flicking through images on the simple holoscreen set up opposite Finn’s bed to decorate the otherwise sterile white room, because he’s sure no one deserves to wake up and find themselves staring at the default display of temperature and time.  He’s just settled on a lovely little lunarscape loop when he notices Wedge.  A bit embarrassed, he straightens up and pulls away from the holoscreen controls, but Wedge waves him back.

            “No need to stop on my account,” he says.  “I’ve done my fair share of waiting in sickbays.”

            Poe finishes adjusting the display and then sits down in the chair by Finn’s be.  He says nothing, because he has no idea at all what Wedge wants.

            Wedge is looking at them, but Poe’s not sure the older man is really seeing _them_ , exactly.  There’s something a little distant in his warm brown eyes.  Then he shakes his head slightly, as if to clear it, and smiles ruefully at Poe.  “Just thought you could use a bit of company.  Bedside vigils for fallen heroes aren’t exactly fun work.”

            “I’ve just been checking on him every so often – I figure no one should wake up alone, you know?  Not on a planet they don’t really know, and especially not after saving all of our asses.  And I kind of am the guy who knows him the best of anyone left on base, I guess.”

            Wedge has crossed to the end of the bed and is now examining Finn’s charts, so it takes him a few moments to reply.  “Of course.  Looks like he’s doing pretty well,” he offers.  “His vitals all look good.  I’d bet he wakes up by midnight, noon tomorrow latest.”

            “Thanks.”  Poe wonders _why_ Wedge is so good at reading medical charts, but he decides he doesn’t want to ask.  Some memories are probably not meant to be summoned up and presented in broad daylight to satisfy subordinates’ curiosity.

            “So, how are you holding up?” Wedge asks.

            The question catches Poe off-guard, because he’s been thinking mostly about _Finn’s_ wellbeing lately, not his own.  He considers it for a moment before he says, “I guess I’m OK?  It’s been a hell of a couple days.  And Finn – well – I’ve only known the guy for a little while, but since I met him, he saved my life and I gave him a name.”  He laughs.  “We should probably slow things down.  Getting dinner after all this seems like a bit of a step down, but I think we should try it.”  A pause, and then another sentiment bubbles out of him, one he’s been avoiding voicing to anyone for a while now, given how ungrateful and uncharitable it sounds even in his head: “I can’t believe he was stupid enough to try to take on _Kylo Ren_ with a lightsaber – or that he survived doing that!  I don’t think he even really knows _how_ to fight with a lightsaber!”

            To his surprise, Wedge laughs.  “That reminds me of when Luke woke up after Bespin.  I didn’t know whether to – well, whether to kiss him or punch him, to be honest.”  He shakes his head.  “Heroes make terrible partners, in some ways.  But they make up for it in other things.  And hey – they’ll put up with you when it’s _you_ in the sickbay after pulling some dumb stunt and might even refrain from yelling at you.  Well.  From yelling at you too much.  Because they know exactly _why_ you’re sacrificing yourself for others, ’cause they do it too.”

            Poe frowns, because he hasn’t been thinking about it like that before.  If he’s honest with himself, he _had_ been planning on yelling at Finn after he awoke, because seriously, what had Finn been thinking?  He’d tried to take on a _trained_ ex-Jedi, a guy who had savaged Poe’s own mind without breaking a sweat, in armed combat, with a weapon he didn’t know how to use!  That was either stupid, suicidal, or both.  But Poe has to admit that if he’d been the one there, the only one standing between Kylo Ren and the death of a friend, he would have grabbed the blue lightsaber and done the same himself.  If he stops thinking of Finn as some sort of innocent young guy, unaccustomed to even things as basic as having his own name, and lets him be a hero: well.  Finn starts seeming pretty damn heroic pretty damn fast.  (Even if he still is stupid for having taken Ren on single-handedly.  Stupid and heroic aren’t always that different – he should know.)

            “Anyways,” Wedge says, walking over to the door.  “I didn’t just come to intrude or talk about myself.  I just wanted to let you know I’m on base and will be here for the next three days before they ship me out to the Outer Rim.”

            “What did you do to deserve that?” Poe asks, grinning.

            “I’m asking myself the same question, believe me.  But if you need to talk, I’ll be around.  For one thing, I’d love to hear more about how you blew up your very own sort of Death Star – I’d like to hear what trench runs against imperial superweapons are like these days.  Professional curiosity.”

            “We could get drinks, maybe?”

            “I’d like that,” Wedge says.  “And Wes and Hobbies are finally on base at the same time, so maybe you can meet the terrible twosome properly at last.  I’m not sure you should look so excited about that,” he adds, half-seriously.  “You don’t know what they’re like together.  Good luck keeping them from getting their hands on blackmail material that will last until the day you die after tonight.”  And with that he leaves Poe and Finn alone, closing the sickbay door quietly behind him.

            Poe just watches Finn breathe for a few minutes longer, wondering what he’ll say to this stormtrooper who’s somehow managed to stake a serious claim on his heart after only a few hours of knowing him.  It’ll have to be something cool, but kind of smooth, and also a bit sweet, to let Finn know he has a soft side – and then he shakes his head, chuckling quietly at himself.  He’ll say _something_ , Finn will say something back, and they’ll just have to see where things go from there.


	5. odysseus's return

            The message Finn had sent him reads, “It’s Rey – get down to Bay 6 right now!”  What his boyfriend had neglected to mentioned, Poe notes, as he skids to a halt in the doors to the bay, poleaxed by the sight of the long-lost Hero of the Rebellion descending from the _Millennium Falcon_ behind Chewbacca, is that Rey has brought _Luke Skywalker_ with her.

            Someone seems to have thought to mention this pertinent fact to the base’s top brass, however, because Leia and Wedge enter the bay barely moments after him. The two are carrying themselves in a much more respectable fashion than Poe’s pell-mell sprint, but Poe notices neither had actually been moving more slowly than he.  They just seem to have more practice at being stately and speedy at the same time.

            Rey and Finn are hugging, each talking a mile a minute (and Poe smiles fondly, because there’s no way either can possibly understand what the other is saying, but neither seems to want to stop), but Poe finds himself drawn to watch the other reunion going on in the bay before joining them.  Where Rey and Finn had been all smiles and exclamations, the older Resistance fighters are much more subdued.  Luke hangs back, half-hidden in the shadows beneath the _Falcon_ , and Leia and Wedge have paused a few feet from him.  No one says a word.  Leia’s hand rests on Wedge’s shoulder, long white fingers splayed out against the blue fabric, and all three look tense – until Leia says, “Luke, you _idiot_ ,” and strides forward to embrace him.  The old Jedi steps into the light to hug her, and as Poe watches, he closes his eyes, tears streaming down his face as he holds his twin sister close.  Neither speaks, but after a moment, all the tension leaves their frames.  When they break apart, Leia is beaming and Luke wears a small smile.

            He looks up and meets Wedge’s eyes.  Wedge is standing stock still, his muscles tensed as if to flee, and Poe thinks he has never seen his sometime-mentor looks so unsure.  His shoulders are stiff under his uniform jacket and he looks small, dwarfed by the bay around him and the massive ship in front of him.  Then Luke strides forward to him and folds his arms around him, and Wedge sags against him, rests his head against his husband’s shoulder.

            “I missed you so much,” Wedge mutters.

            “I’m sorry,” Luke says.  He leans back and raises one hand to Wedge’s face, pushing back silver-gray hair from his forehead.  He traces a thumb along the other man’s cheekbone like he’s relearning his face by touch.  He’s looking at Wedge as if he’s never seen anything as precious as him before, as if the worn-down ex-flyboy in front of him is the most important person in the galaxy.  “I’m sorry.”

            “You damn well better be, Luke,” Wedge growls, and then he smiles, his whole face lighting up in a way Poe has never seen before, and pulls Luke forward into a kiss.  Luke cups his face in his hands and they kiss like a couple who has been in love longer than Poe has been alive, as if no one else in the world exists.  Or maybe as if neither cares whether anyone else in the world exists.  It’s so intimate that Poe both feels uncomfortable and like he can’t look elsewhere, the honest depth of emotion on display impossible to turn away from.

            Finn pokes him and Poe jumps.  “Are you going to watch old people making out or are you going to let me introduce you to my friend?” he demands, and Poe laughs.

            “I did already meet Rey, you know.  While you were, uh, sleeping.”

            “You mean while I was in a coma,” Finn says.  “But also, c’mon.  I used to be a stormtrooper and now all my friends are your coworkers.  This is literally the only person in the entire galaxy I know better than you.  You’re not gonna rob me of the chance to introduce you to someone for once.”

            And Poe has no choice but to laugh again, because he’s self-aware enough to know that he loves the delight Finn takes in doing things that seem boring and normal to him, like making introductions.  So he lets himself be dragged by the wrist over to Rey.

            “So, this is the guy whose jacket you stole,” Rey says.

            “Yeah, and that jacket is now _mine_ , because this is my cute boyfriend,” Finn informs Rey.  “Which, for the record, means I got a boyfriend before you did, Miss Single-and-from-Jakku,” and then Finn and Rey are off and Poe watches them with amusement.  Behind him, he hears Luke, Leia, and Wedge begin to talk as well – a much more muted conversation than the bright banter between Finn and Rey, but no less fond or relieved.  Maybe someday that will be them, he thinks suddenly, reuniting in a bay after some mission and so thankful to see each other alive.  Hopefully not after so long spent apart, but then – they’ll make their own mistakes.  And if the Force is with them, maybe they’ll be able to recover from them as well as Luke, his sister, and his husband have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... and we're done! (Except: maybe not entirely. No promises, but I might make this a series in order to append a brief interlude just featuring Leia and Wedge talking about Luke, which would explain why they react the way they do to his return. I decided not to include that in the fic proper, as it didn't really fit with the Poe-and-Wedge theme - unless, er, Poe eavesdropped on the whole conversation, and there's a bit too much of Poe awkward!eavesdropping in this chapter already - but it might fit in as a separate piece. =)) In any event, there should certainly be more Luke/Wedge and Poe/Finn fic to come: currently working on "Five Times a Couple Tried to Have Sex in an X-Wing (And the One Couple Too Smart Even to Try)", so ~watch this space~!
> 
> Finally, if you want to join my Luke/Wedge party, come say hey [over on tumblr](http://www.azurish.tumblr.com). :)


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